Still Running Off at the Keyboard

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

CALGARY — The Catholic school board in Calgary has followed the lead of a Catholic school board in Burlington, Ont., in pulling the children's fantasy book The Golden Compass off school shelves.

Board officials said their decision followed concern voiced by parents and recent publicity surrounding the release of a movie version of the book, starring Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman.

“Our children are exposed to a wide range of information,” said board spokeswoman Judy Mackay. “One of our responsibilities is to help them understand how that fits with their belief system and to equip them with the skills so that they understand how they can fit that into their own belief system.”

Investor's Business Daily, Inc. wades in on GC, painting an even more dismal picture of the author's thinking that lies behind his books:

Pullman is a fire-breathing British atheist who has told the Washington Post that "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief" and remarked that "My books are about killing God."

He has also noted that "I am of the Devil's party and I know it."

Daily Mail writer Peter Hitchens has called Pullman "the most dangerous author in Britain," a storyteller determined to "dethrone" "Chronicles of Narnia" author C.S. Lewis "and supplant his books with others which proclaim the death of God to the young."

The book version of "The Golden Compass" and its two sequels feature a hybrid of Catholic and Protestant authority that includes a "Pope John Calvin." Two children, a pseudo-Adam and Eve named Will and Lyra, have Narnia-like adventures with talking bears and witches as they are pitted against a "church" or "magisterium" that kidnaps children through its "general oblation board," "oblate" being a Catholic term for monks and nuns.

"Gobblers," as members of the general oblation board are known, kidnap children and perform experiments on them, such as ripping out their souls or "daemons," which then live in animal form. It renders the children zombies.

At the epic's finale, a wrinkled, demented God is tracked down and destroyed, and Will and Lyra are liberated by their discovery of sexuality.

Indeed, Pullman has stated that one of his goals is to destroy the naivete of childhood.

Read the rest of the article, including fellow atheist Richard Dawkins' claim that religious labels (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim) are "always a form of child abuse" and atheist Christopher Hichens' question "Is religion child abuse?" Militant atheism is a danger to any parent who believes in God.